The people within tried to find the words to sum up the news they'd woken up to on Saturday morning as they wrapped tape around their sleeves, but they could only find one: Warnie.

It was the first word sent in group chats. The first word mentioned at the gym before the sun had risen in the morning. The first word uttered in disbelief over coffee.

A giant of the game has fallen. Shane Warne, a larger-than-life character who transcended cricket, had died following a suspected heart attack in Koh Samui. He was 52.

Some thought the messages they were waking up to were a hoax, perhaps out of hope as much as disbelief. For hours we tried to find the words, but only one came to mind: Warnie.

MORE SPORT

Suddenly the game seems smaller. The Australian cricket fraternity is at a loss, many of whom hearing the news while in Rawalpindi for the first Test against Pakistan for the Benaud Qadir trophy.

Warne's death follows that of Rod Marsh, who is being hailed as among the sport's most influential figures in his own right after passing away aged 74, a week after suffering a heart attack.

The greatest leg-spinner the game has ever seen turned your every day person into a hero. He was the tubby blonde kid who didn't mind a smoke or a beer. And he's gone.

You didn't have to be a superstar at cricket to be like Warnie. You just had to roll your arm over and spin it as far as you could - though few will ever master the art quite like the fella from the outer suburbs of Melbourne.

He was the hero cricket needed in backyards across the nation for 30 years. Long after his retirement, we were still popping our collars, trying to recreate the Gatting Ball and the ensuing fist pump.

Perhaps that's why it was so hard to fathom as one walked into a Lonsdale Street cafe to see Warne's face on every television screen, his edition of Fox Sports' Cricket Legends playing on a loop.

The man who had given us so many golden moments is gone.

"I was very lucky to have a lot of those with the team winning World Cups, winning Ashes series, MCG in front of 90,000 taking your 700th, Gatting," Warne said during the Cricket Legends episode.

"I've been lucky. I played in an era of Australian cricket that was as good as any era of Australian cricket. I'm very thankful for my life."

To children Brooke, Summer and Jackson, he was dad. To the rest, he was the king.

On the field Warne was a modern marvel, the only bowler among Wisden's cricketers of the century. His 708 Test wickets are bettered by no Australian.

The MCG's Great Southern Stand is to be renamed in his honour, the S.K. Warne Stand a lasting reminder of his incredible legacy.

Yet Warne's career started in modest fashion. The only things brighter than his shock blonde hair were his earring and the gold chain hanging around his neck when he walked onto the SCG on January 2, 1992, unfit and somewhat unknown.

Warne left the field that day with the modest figures of 1-150.

But when he walked away from the game seemingly at the peak of his powers, he did so as arguably the biggest star in world cricket - perhaps only behind Indian icon Sachin Tendulkar - with an extraordinary highlight reel will be the envy of cricketers forevermore.

Unforgettable is the ball that drifted across the right-handed Mike Gatting, dipped, spun enough to beat the bat and took the top of off stump.

So too is his MCG hat-trick, a herculean 40-wicket haul throughout the 2005 Ashes series, his 700^th Test scalp fittingly claimed on his home turf, and an SCG swansong that saw him move past 1000 international wickets.

Off the pitch he was just as likely to talk about poker tournaments or belt out the lyrics to a Bruce Springsteen tune as he was to expertly break down the art of leg-spin.

Though there were two sides to the enigma that was Warne. He was a fascinating blend of supreme confidence and insecurity.

His career was plagued by off-field scandals including a ban for taking a prohibited substance and being charged with bringing the game into disrepute by accepting money from a bookmaker.

Yet for every hurdle, every moment that made us shake our heads in disagreement or disappointment, nothing could change the fact Warnie was still the king.

He infatuated crowds like few before or since. He was the reason you didn't leave your seat at the cricket, the reason you stayed on the couch for one more over before you had to duck out of the house.

Warne connected sport with celebrity. Larrikins with athletes. Kids with a cricketing dream.

"Shane was a once-in-a-century cricketer and his achievements will stand for all time, but apart from the wickets he took and the games he helped Australia win, what he did was draw so many people to the sport," Australian Test captain Pat Cummins said.

"So many of us in the playing group grew up idolising him and fell in love with this great sport as a result, while many of our support staff either played with him or against him.

"The game of cricket was never the same after Shane emerged, and it will never be the same now he has gone. Rest in peace 'King'."

Cricket has lost one of its greatest, a man who was to cricket what nobody had ever been before. Warne was a rockstar, a man built to carry the weight of a nation as he stood at the top of his mark.

"Whoever writes my scripts is doing an unbelievable job," Warne said during his final Test series.

For all of its twists and turns, this one ended a little too soon.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: